"Palliative care, and devising better strategies to more comprehensively support families and greater public engagement about death, dying and end of life will deliver far more benefit to Victorians and should be given priority before allocating resources to explore the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide.”

It’s not very often that I find myself in agreement with Phillip Nitschke. We’ve been on opposite sides of a number of debates both formal and informal in recent months. But in Launceston he surprised me.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed February 6 to 12 was “Euthanasia week” in the Netherlands. And what better way to mark this, the tenth anniversary of the Dutch right-to-die legislation, than a film festival.

On Monday, September 23,The Timespublished an essay by Grey-Thompson titled “Assisted suicide: a chilling prospect for disabled people.” Below is a slightly different version of the essay, shared here with the author’s permission.

the rapid escalation of euthanasia and assisted suicide cases in the Netherlands,Oregon and Switzerland in recent years but Belgium is eclipsing all of these countries in the race to become the ‘world leader’.

The push by those driving the “dying with dignity” groups, including much of our media, to neutralize the terms euthanasia and assisted suicide now includes the Canadian Nurses Association, our national voice.